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City Paper has been bringing the best news, food, arts, music and event coverage to the Holy City since 1997. Support our continued efforts to highlight the best of Charleston with a one-time donation or become a member of the City Paper Club.
Charleston City Paper
A much-anticipated murder trial that starts Monday in Walterboro is, by definition, an automatic media spectacle. It starts with the story of an affluent small county Lowcountry ex-lawyer charged with murdering his wife and a son. But it also blends in the possibility that the murders, an odd 911 call and alleged attempted suicide were little more than ways the defendant tried to cover up the disappearance of millions of dollars from one source after another.
The whole kit and caboodle is the story of Alex Murdaugh, whose family, friends and acquaintances alternatively pronounce his first name as “AL-ix” or the more colloquial and friendly “AL-ik” – sometimes in the same sentence. His downfall from privileged paragon of Hampton County to jumpsuit-wearing prisoner has captured the nation’s attention in a plethora of news reports, specials, podcasts and even a made-for-TV Netflix docuseries that starts at the end of February. Layer upon layer of nuances about the June 2021 murders and later financial charges have been analyzed, dissected and opined upon as a real-life saga of something that seems straight out of a Stephen King novel.
There are a lot of moving parts. So here are five things to keep in mind as you follow the coverage that will suck the oxygen out of Lowcountry news reporting in the days ahead.
This list could continue, with lots of nuanced information, such as the death of a 19-year-old girl in a boating accident in which Paul Murdaugh was charged with driving the boat while drunk two years before he was murdered. Or the 2018 death of the Murdaugh’s housekeeper, whose body was exhumed and how her family didn’t get an insurance settlement worth millions until they settled a lawsuit against the same bank that was implicated in Murdaugh’s financial schemes. Or how a banker with that bank was found guilty in November by a federal jury of six counts of financial crimes related to Murdaugh. The banker, Russell Laffitte, is appealing.
So hold onto your hats. It’s bound to be a wild ride.
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City Paper has been bringing the best news, food, arts, music and event coverage to the Holy City since 1997. Support our continued efforts to highlight the best of Charleston with a one-time donation or become a member of the City Paper Club.
Stay cool. Support City Paper.
City Paper has been bringing the best news, food, arts, music and event coverage to the Holy City since 1997. Support our continued efforts to highlight the best of Charleston with a one-time donation or become a member of the City Paper Club.